Personal productivity software has helped to streamline and simplify the role of information workers. Beginning with basic email clients, productivity software has grown to include a variety of other “desktop” applications, replacing paper calendars, rolodexes, and task lists with their software equivalents. Hybrid programs sometimes referred to as personal information managers (PIMs) have succeeded somewhat in combining these disparate programs into a single interface. Not only are such applications able to track appointments, to do's, contacts, and so forth, but they can combine the functions, such that setting up a meeting merely requires adding an appointment to your calendar and adding contacts to the appointment. Some applications have taken personal information managers a step further, enabling new interface methods, such as having a user's email read to her by phone.
Having all this relevant information available in one place may have enhanced user productivity, but these PIMs have failed to take full advantage of the information. For example, when a user creates a new appointment, she must still discern how long of a lead time will be needed for a reminder, or provide one default value that is used for all reminders. Furthermore, if the user is not at her desk when the reminder is triggered, then she may forget the appointment, and the reminder is wasted. Ultimately, PIMs and their users do not take full advantage of the information available to them to further enhance productivity.
United States Patent Application 20070043687 discloses methods for assisting a user with a variety of tasks. A virtual assistant has access to a user's contacts, calendar, and location. The virtual assistant also is able to access information about weather, traffic, and mass transit, and is able to adjust the time for alerting a user about an upcoming appointment. The virtual assistant also has a rules engine enabling a user to create rules for handling incoming calls and instant messages, rerouting calls based on their caller identification. The virtual assistant also has a query engine enabling a user to find a document and to work with it, including sending it to a contact in the user's address book. Interfaces to virtual assistant may include installed software client, web browser, SMS/instant message, as well as an interactive voice response system.
One recent interaction paradigm is the Virtual Personal Assistant (VPA). Siri is a virtual personal assistant for the mobile Internet. Although just in its infancy, Siri can help with some common tasks that human assistants do, such as booking a restaurant, getting tickets to a show, and inviting a friend.